40. The Conspiracy of the Epigones¶
Core Argument¶
In early 1923, as the twelfth congress approached and Lenin lay incapacitated, a conspiracy began to crystallise within the Bolshevik leadership. Stalin initially proposed that Trotsky deliver the main political report, a suggestion supported by Kalinin and Rykov but met with reluctance from Kamenev. Trotsky himself objected, arguing that the economic differences within the leadership made a single report inadvisable. Stalin denied any such differences existed. When Zinoviev returned from the Caucasus, he demanded the report for himself. Kamenev then canvassed old Bolsheviks, asking whether Trotsky should be permitted sole direction of party and state. The trio—Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev—decided that Zinoviev would deliver the report; Trotsky raised no objection. As Lenin’s condition worsened, the trio executed a sharp about-face, seeking confrontation. Kamenev inserted a clause on the peasantry into Trotsky’s already-approved resolution on industry, a deliberate provocation designed to accuse Trotsky of underestimating the peasantry. Kamenev later admitted this was cooked up. Trotsky argues that political morals derive from politics itself; revolutionary dictatorship demands more stringent standards than parliamentarism. The trio’s methods signalled political backsliding.
The conspirators could not openly oppose Trotsky, whose name was bound to Lenin’s through the October Revolution and the Civil War. Trotsky quotes earlier praise from Radek, Lunacharsky, Yaroslavsky and Stalin himself, noting that Stalin had written that the party owed the October uprising’s organisation “first and foremost to Comrade Trotsky.” Years of baiting were needed before Stalin could deny Trotsky’s role. The trio could only pit Lenin against Trotsky, requiring Lenin fatally ill or dead, and Trotsky out of action. This occurred in autumn 1923, when Trotsky fell ill after a hunting trip. Lenin and Trotsky had repeatedly planned but never managed to hunt together, prevented first by revolution and civil war, then by Lenin’s illness. Trotsky was hunting alone in October 1923 at Zabolotye; stepping from a canoe onto a thawed bog, he soaked his feet, caught a chill and developed a cryptogenic fever that confined him to bed for the rest of autumn and winter. Thus throughout the 1923 discussion of ‘Trotskyism’, Trotsky was ill.
The epigones widened their conspiracy cautiously, with Zinoviev surrounding slander with reservations. They created a science for fabricating reputations and manipulating the honorary presidium: initially pairing Lenin and Trotsky, then adding all Politburo members, then alphabetical order, then a new hierarchy with Zinoviev first, later Stalin. Omissions of Trotsky’s name provoked protests, but newspapers suppressed them. Preobrazhensky accused them of replacing the cult of one leader with the cult of lesser ones. Politburo meetings were held in Trotsky’s apartment while he was ill; he spoke with his whole being, while cold, indifferent replies came from opponents who had already decided everything. A secret political bureau of seven was formed, excluding Trotsky, with codes and discipline, selecting personnel solely by the criterion: Against Trotsky. Lenin’s death freed the conspirators to operate openly. From 1923, the same selection was imposed on the Communist International, replacing independent figures with mediocrities dependent on the apparatus, culminating in Stalin’s rise.